I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 856: You honor us

The midday sun over Caeloria lacked the warmth of the rest of the mortal realms.

It fell across the city in pale, sterile sheets, casting sharp shadows along the white marble colonnades that led away from the high palace.

The streets were unnaturally quiet.

The succession challenge was concluded, the blood of Theo Althalos remained frozen in the deep chasm of Floor Thirteen, and the smell of ancient incense drifting from the temples failed to mask the scent of crushed pride settling over the capital.

Jack Kaiser walked down the broad avenue leading toward the outer district where the Krogar delegation was housed.

He wore his long dark coat, the empty left sleeve pinned flat against his side. His white hair lifted slightly in the high-altitude draft, his heterochromic eyes scanning the perimeter.

Beside him, matching his stride with effortless, silent grace, walked Ren Ryzard. The swordsman’s blue eyes flicked across the high rooftops where elven sentinels lurked behind parapets, their bows lowered, their fingers twitching on their bowstrings without the courage to draw.

Dragging two paces behind Ren, bound by heavy manacles forged of cold abyssal iron, was Morvana.

The former Queen of Caeloria was stripped of her fine silks, her golden headdress, and the regal jewelry that had once signaled her absolute authority over the high lineages.

She wore a coarse, gray wool tunic stained with dirt and dried salt from the palace dungeons. Her long golden hair was matted into tangled ropes across her bruised face, and her split lip wept a thin, sluggish line of blood down her chin.

The iron collar around her throat hummed with suppression runes, choking her core and reducing her mana to a dead, stagnant puddle.

Morvana stumbled over a loose paving stone, her knees buckling, the iron chains rattling violently against the stone.

Ren did not break his stride. Without looking down, his right hand tightened around the chain, yanking the fallen queen back onto her feet with enough kinetic force to wrench her shoulder.

Morvana let out a sharp, choked gasp of pain, but no words escaped her mouth. Her aristocratic arrogance had been beaten out of her in the dark beneath the throne room; only the hollow, wide-eyed terror of a condemned prisoner remained.

They reached the perimeter of the Krogar villa.

The dark stone fortress stood like an ugly, immovable scar against the surrounding district’s delicate marble architecture. The heavy timber gates were open, and the ten-foot-tall guards positioned at the threshold straightened their massive postures the moment Jack approached.

Skarl Gor-Voidgaze stepped out into the courtyard. The hulking orc’s forest-green hide was scarred from decades of border skirmishes, his serrated tusks jutting aggressively from his lower jaw. In his right hand, he held a broad, jagged cleaver that dragged lightly through the gravel.

Skarl looked from Jack to the bound, shivering elven woman held by the iron leash, then to the massive wooden crates resting upon a transit pallet hovering just behind Ren.

“Kaiser,” Skarl rumbled, his deep voice shaking the dry leaves from the courtyard planters. “You return without the elven escort. And you bring baggage.”

“I bring what was promised,” Jack said, his tone flat and level.

From the dark interior of the villa, the rhythmic thud of a wooden staff against the floorboards announced the approach of Grom Zor-Grimmarch.

The ancient shaman emerged into the sunlight, his volcanic-black hide stark against the ritual white paint streaked across his broad face.

His long, curved tusks, wrapped in silver wire and etched with intricate shamanic runes, glinted in the noon glare.

His sharp, ancient eyes did not look at Jack first; they fell directly upon the hovering transit pallet.

Jack raised his right hand, signaling the platform forward.

The heavy lids of the crates unlatched with a series of dull, pneumatic clicks.

Within the insulated, temperature-regulated containers lay thousands of harvested components: pristine bundles of Moon-veil root, crystallized vials of pure elemental sap, dense blocks of refined starlight ore, and thirty sealed glass canisters filled with the sacred, pulsating crimson fluids drawn directly from the Sacred Tree.

Grom’s nostrils flared. His chest expanded as he inhaled the deep, herbal aroma and the sharp tang of high-tier magical catalysts.

“The components,” Grom said, his voice dropping into a low, reverent rumble. “Every reagent my brothers requested for the great rites. Untouched by elven dilution.”

“King Maelor signed the release orders before the dawn,” Jack said. He gestured casually with his chin toward the woman on the leash. “And that is your second delivery. Morvana. Former Queen of Caeloria.”

Grom’s ancient eyes shifted to the trembling woman kneeling in the gravel.

The shaman took two slow, heavy steps forward, his staff striking the ground with concussive weight. He stopped three inches from Morvana, looking down upon her with the cold, absolute judgment of an elder whose kin had been butchered in the dark.

“The mastermind,” Grom murmured, the silver wire on his tusks vibrating with a faint, resonant hum. “The architect who ordered the poisoning of Korva Stonefoot. The spider who hollowed the veins of our negotiator and filled them with the Ash to test if our people would bow to imperial deceit.”

Morvana tried to turn her head away, her neck muscles straining against the iron collar, but Grom reached down with a massive, clawed hand, gripping her jaw with enough crushing pressure to force her teeth into the meat of her cheek. He tilted her face upward, studying the raw terror in her cerulean eyes.

“She thought herself a goddess among mortals,” Grom said, turning his gaze back to Jack. “She thought an orc’s blood was cheap fertilizer for her political ambition. What are your terms for her disposal?”

“She is a gift to Krogar,” Jack stated with cold, absolute finality. “She is no longer royal blood. She is no longer an elf of standing. Take her back to your strongholds. Execute her on your ancestral stones, flay her hide for drum leather, or throw her into the breeding pens to be used as a sow until her lungs fail. Her fate belongs entirely to the clan she wronged.”

A dark, guttural chuckle rumbled through the assembled orcs in the courtyard. Skarl’s massive chest heaved with brutal amusement, his thick hand dropping to rest against the hilt of his cleaver.

“A sow with royal elven blood,” Skarl sneered, spitting a thick wad of tobacco onto Morvana’s bare foot. “The young bulls in the lower camps will run her until she forgets the dialect of the capital. A fitting end for a creature that traded with demons.”

Grom released his grip on Morvana’s jaw, tossing her face aside as if she were a piece of soiled parchment. He looked at Jack, his expression shifting from ancient wrath to deep, calculating respect.

“You honor your agreements with precision, Jack Kaiser,” Grom said. “The blood debt is answered, and our people receive the reagents that will sustain our lines through the coming winters. The Krogar delegation prepares to depart the Elven Kingdom within the hour. Our treaty rights here are concluded.”

“You will not be traveling alone,” Jack said smoothly.

Grom paused, his hand tightening slightly against his staff. “You intend to accompany us now? To claim the second condition of our pact?”